A five-year contract was agreed between ¾µä´ó¹Ï and its Faculty Union early Tuesday morning (May 4, 2021). Both parties came to terms after 1 year, 4 months and 28 days of negotiations. Inaugural contracts are known to take a very long time to come to fruition, and these negotiations vastly occurred during a global pandemic.
Tentative agreements were reached on all remaining proposals including salary wherein ¾µä´ó¹Ï offered a guaranteed 11.5% salary increase over the life of the contract with an additional 3.5% possible through merit increases, and healthcare that includes ¾µä´ó¹Ï paying 95 to 97 percent of healthcare costs. Both parties agreed to new workload expectations which will allow faculty to spend more time with students and in the classroom.
This was a long and arduous process, but the end result will prove worthy of the time and effort expended. At times our community was pulled in different directions over the faculty union strike and the labor negotiations. Now it is time for us to unite and speak in one voice in support of ¾µä´ó¹Ï and our students.
¾µä´ó¹Ï is poised to emerge from this contract negotiation stronger and with a renewed vigor. ¾µä´ó¹Ï thanks our students, their parents and family members, alumni, donors, and our community leadership for their unyielding support during this process as the University and the faculty union negotiated the inaugural contract.
